Strain and Breakdown

Neil Lund

2024-09-03

Where does collective action come from?

Gustav LeBon

Context

  • France has revolutions in 1789. Then again in 1830. And then 1848

  • Napoleon III stages a “self-coup” in 1851 and rules as an effective dictator for the next 22 years

  • By 1870: widespread urban/rural polarization over Napoleonic rule and everyone is afraid of the Prussians.

The Franco Prussian War

… This does not go well. By 1870:

  • Paris is besieged (and not ready for it)

  • Napoleon the 3rd captured in Sedan

  • The French Second Republic is dissolved and an interim government ends up negotiating a humiliating armistice with Prussia.

The Third Republic

Following the armistice:

  • A conservative dominated national government is elected, and relocates the capital to Versailles

  • Parisian radicals (supported by the mostly working-class national guard forces) seize military equipment and declared a parallel government organized under democratic/socialist ideals (the commune)

The Paris Commune

  • Separation of church and state
  • Abolition of child labor and the death penalty
  • Pensions for widows of soldiers, remission of rents
  • Prohibition on fines imposed by employers
  • More controversially: hostage taking and hostage killing

Resolution

  • The government at Versailles regroups, and, by May, overtakes the city and massacres the Communards

  • The Communards retaliate by looting and burning the city

Aftermath

The howling, swarming, ragged crowd which invaded the Tuileries… did not lay hands on any of the objects that excited its astonishment, and one of which would have meant bread for many days. - Gustav LeBon

Crowd Psychology: LeBon

Crowd psychology is not like individual psychology

  • Crowds allow anonymity and lack of accountability

  • People lose their will and self control

  • They’re left highly suggestible (like hypnosis) and will behave in ways they’d never on their own

  • Since Europe is democratizing, crowds now rule.

Crowd Psychology: LeBon

Crowd psychology is not like individual psychology

  • Crowds allow anonymity and lack of accountability

  • People lose their will and self control

  • They’re left highly suggestible (like hypnosis) and will behave in ways they’d never on their own

  • Since Europe is democratizing, crowds now rule

Group Psychology and Collective Behavior

  • The study of group psychology sees a revival in the mid 20th century (why?)

  • More nuanced versions of LeBon’s general thesis gain influence in the 1960s (even among people who otherwise reject his politics)

Blumer

  1. Disruption of routine (disaster, celebration, societal breakdown etc)
  2. Milling (people stand around and talk)
  3. People focus on a shared object or concern
  4. Common impulses emerge to take the place of normal routines
  5. Collective behavior

Ted Gurr: Rebellion

  • Why did we see a sudden surge in revolutions, civil wars, and rebellions in the late 20th century?

  • Why do conflicts sometimes happen even under improving conditions?

  • For Gurr: aggression stems from a disconnect between expectations and reality.
    “Relative deprivation” causes frustration which leads to political violence.

Strain theories: shared assumptions

  • Crowd psychology is distinct from individual psychology. Crowds are “transformative”

    • Primarily through mechanisms of anonymity and disruption of routines

  • Crowds are more driven by emotion than reason, and are spontaneous rather than deliberate.

    • So pathologies like violence, rumor, social contagion, etc. are all more common in groups

  • Crowds are mobilized by social strain and societal breakdown, and participants are more likely to come from groups where loss of self is more attractive.

Issues

  • Are there scenarios where this makes sense? Are there scenarios where it doesn’t?

  • Why does this start to see sustained pushback in the later 60s and 70s?

Are crowds anonymous and spontaneous?

Are crowds unrestrained?

Are crowds unrestrained?

Norris Johnson (1987) study of Who concert disaster

  • Apparent acquisitive panic actually an effort to escape a crowd collapse

  • Victims describe being picked up, or groups forming protective cordons

  • Evidence of gender norms around helping behaviors

I lost my footing and slowly but surely began going down…I grabbed someone’s leg and whoever it was told three other guys about me. They all pushed me up… [and] helped me stay up until we got through the door

Are crowds uniquely suggestible?

Does relative deprivation lead to violence?

Critique

  • McPhail notes: small groups show just as much evidence of suggestibility as large ones.

  • Sustained collective resistance often highly organized and sophisticated, and people maintain some self control even in a riot.

  • Forms of collective action are historically contingent and change as incentives change.

  • Participants know each other! Being part of a social network makes you more likely to protest.

  • Violence and deprivation are not neatly correlated (at a minimum, strain alone can’t explain rebellion)

Takeaways

  • Collective behavior tradition remains influential, but see serious challenges in the 1960s.

  • Next class we’ll talk about some of the models that attempt to replace it.